This Is The Dots Chart Janet Yellen Doesn't Want You To Pay Close Attention To

One is that the Fed has scrapped the Evans Rule, which said the Fed might think about rate hikes once unemployment hits 6.5%. Now the Fed is being more vague about when it will hike rates.

The other notable fact is that more members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) see rate hikes sooner than they did last year.

This change is represented in the following two charts.

The first shows the predicted path of the federal funds rate. Each dot represents where an FOMC member sees the federal funds rate at the end of each year. The second chart shows the same thing, except it's from the December meeting. The key thing to look at is the dots in 2015. More people now think there will be a rate hike in 2015 than did at the previous meeting.

FOMC

FOMC

So because more people anticipate a rate hike in 2015, that's being seen as tightening.

But in her press conference, Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen said not to pay close attention. Specifically, she said people "should not look at the dot plot as the primary way in which the Committee is speaking to the public at large."

Later she said: "These dots are going to move up or down over time," implying that there's going to be a lot of fluctuation.